


Torture Porn

by orphan_account



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-20
Updated: 2012-07-22
Packaged: 2017-11-10 08:54:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/464480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock awakes in strange room with no memory how he got there while a projection screen before him beckons him to solve a puzzle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Let's Have a Thought Experiment

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: This contains graphic depictions of violence. It sure does. Like, gore. Blood. Dismemberment. Bad things. You shouldn't read this. No one should, but especially you. I named the story "Torture Porn" because that is exactly what it is. If you're still reading, goody-goody. Let's begin.

Sherlock groaned. His eyes fluttered open.

He was sitting up in a chair in a room he didn't recognize. He was uncomfortable. Blinking drowsily, he tried to move his head and winced when he felt pain. He tried to reach up to touch his throbbing temple, but his hands were immobile. He looked down to see why. After a few minutes of letting his eyes focus, he saw his wrists were clamped down to the arms of the large metal chair he was strapped to.

"Hmph." He didn't have time to be alarmed. He didn't have time to dwell on, _"How did I get here?"_ His mind was already leaping ahead, scanning the room. Large room, dim recessed lighting, tile floors, no windows, a white board folded up in the corner and a large projection screen directly in front of him. A conference room, possibly in a basement, so not a bank or a business, _no_ , they usually display their conference rooms proudly, full of gleaming windows and overpriced furniture. By the peeling paint and the graying dropped ceiling, this was a lecture hall. University…public library…

The projection screen in front of Sherlock flickered and came to life.

Sherlock's racing thoughts calmed as he focused on the stimuli. He tried to crook his head over his shoulder to see where the projection was coming from, but he found his head was also strapped in place. He also found his head was still tender. Pain lashed at his skull in protest of his moving.

"Mmm," Sherlock smarted without humor. For the first time, he considered he might be in danger. After all, that was some bump on his head. It had put him out long enough to be put in this chair without waking up, and rob him of the memory of how he got it. Also, his hair was damp. Was he bleeding?

**_Let's have a thought experiment._ **

The letters typed themselves out across the screen. Sans-serif font, blinking curser.

Sherlock read the words without expression. Then he replied confidently with a slight smile; "Let's." The words on the screen vanished.

Sherlock waited patiently.

New words began to appear:

**_You are near some train tracks. There are five workers on the tracks, working, repairing the track. They have their backs turned to a trolley which, unbeknownst to them, is approaching. They don't see it. You can't shout to them because you are too far away. And if you do nothing, they will be hit by the train and the five workers will die._ **

**_But you have a choice. You can do nothing. Or, it just so happens that next to you is a lever. You can pull the lever and the trolley will jump on the side tracks where there is only one worker. But if the trolley goes on the second track, it will kill the one worker._ **

**_So there's your choice. Do you kill one man by pulling a lever? Or do you kill five men by doing nothing?_ **

Sherlock sighed. How dull. Using a looming computer screen to communicate with him in an effort to intimidate him. Did this person think Sherlock would not be able to glean information about him by masking his identity behind this tedious prop? And most insultingly, rather than tease him with a riddle that took some thought or effort, he was using a tired morality test. "Oh, come _off_ it," Sherlock huffed, disappointed.

 ** _It's a thought experiment,_** explained the screen, **_that measures your sense of moral justice, not your intellect._**

"I _know_ what it is," Sherlock snapped. "You drugged me, abducted me and chained me in this elaborate…," he paused to struggle uselessly, "… _thing_ just so you could grill me on the moral compass I do not possess?" He sighed, giving up against the chair that did not budge. "Fine," he said, rolling his eyes. "Pull the lever, kill the one man."

**_Why?_ **

"Because, obviously, it's better that five men should live at one man's expense." He desperately wanted to look over his shoulder. Not only was there a projector that displayed the screen, there must be a camera somewhere recording him so his opponent could respond to him in real-time. He wondered how much of a lag there was in the feed.

**_Even though if you do nothing and five men die in an accident, it's nothing more than nature taking its course? Whereas if you pull the lever, you are consciously choosing for one man to die…it amounts to murder._ **

"Murder or accident," reasoned Sherlock impatiently, "the math works out. Five saved over one. It's just logical."

**_Then let's alter the parameters of the scenario._ **

"Let's," agreed the agitated Sherlock. "After all, I'm not going anywhere."

**_You are standing near some train tracks. Five workers are working on the tracks, just as before, the trolley is coming. Except this time you are standing on a foot bridge over the tracks. You are looking down at the tracks. There is no lever now._ **

**_But standing next to you is a man. A large man. He is standing next to you on the train tracks watching the trolley approach with you. You realize, "I can save those five men by pushing this man down onto the tracks. Just give him a nudge. He'll land on the tracks and stop the train."_ **

Sherlock curled his lip. "You want me to hypothetically push the large man onto the tracks?"

**_Would you?_ **

"Yes," Sherlock said dismissively.

**_You would? You don't find any moral difference between pulling a lever and pushing a man off a bridge to his death?_ **

"No, the immediacy has no moral impact on me," Sherlock explained easily. "The math is still the same."

**_Most people would disagree with you. Postulate the same scenario to a hundred people on the street and most people would say pulling the lever is okay while pushing the large man is wrong. But why murder is okay when you're pulling a lever but not okay when you push the man? Consistently, people have no clue what drove their decision._ **

"I find most people have no clue," Sherlock pointed out, disinterested.

**_They don't understand what drove their judgment which is completely spontaneous and automatic and immediate and want to kind of appreciate the dilemma they're now in of lack of consistency makes their whole moral core unravel._ **

"Well, that's what makes me different from most people. I have no moral core to unravel. It's all logic."

**_And that's what makes you such an effective detective. You think differently, not letting abstract feelings cloud your mind.  
_ **

"That's right."

**_That's how you solve crimes-like riddles. There are no real consequences to you. It's just a game._ **

"I like a spirited chase," Sherlock said defensively.

**_Then let's raise the stakes. Make it interesting._ **

Sherlock smirked. "Sounds exciting. What are we playing for?"

The screen went black, the words vanished.

In place of it was a video feed. At first, Sherlock thought it was a mirror image of himself, which was incredibly helpful. It was a large conference room, just like his, and in the middle of the room, facing him, was a man strapped in a metal chair-though it was much larger than Sherlock imagined it was, with many attachments hanging from the ceiling, mechanical moving parts and wires coming out of it. "What _am_ I sitting in?" Sherlock thought to himself.

Then he recognized John Watson as the other man in the chair.

Sherlock's jaw tensed. All pretext of humor or amusement vanished in him.

His automatic reaction was to call out for John. But he didn't. He kept his mouth shut. John couldn't hear him anyway. It was a video.

John was awake, looking dead ahead at the screen. Sherlock felt that John was looking right at him. He wondered what John was seeing, if there was any screen in front of him.

_To be continued…_


	2. The Game

The video feed did not cut out, but new words typed themselves over it:

**_Let's try another thought experiment. To test your assertion that you have no moral center._**

"Let's not," Sherlock said tensely.

**_In this scenario, you and a friend are strapped down to identical torture devices. Both devices have a mechanical arm capable of precise movement, controlled remotely by an operator. Usually, such a device is used for delicate brain surgery. Today, they will be used to facilitate our experiment._**

"Which is?" Sherlock kept his voice metered, trying to mask his alarm. Inside his chest, his heart was pounding. Sweat prickled his brow.

**_John Watson's arm will be severed from his body._**

Sherlock sat rigid and still, unresponsive.

**_No anesthesia. No one to staunch his bleeding or cauterize his wound. Just the chair and a rotating saw. A blade will rise through the chair, grinding through the flesh and bone while he remains immobilized in the chair._**

"I would…," Sherlock struggled to articulate some form of objection without expressing his genuine anxiety. After all, apparently making him squirm and suffer was what Sherlock's mysterious adversary wanted. "…rather that you _didn't_. John, as you must know, is my friend."

**_What if I offered some alternative that would allow John Watson to sit there, unharmed?_**

"I'm listening," Sherlock said, his voice more earnest sounding than he wanted.

**_You would have your arm severed in his place._**

Sherlock sat in silence.

Then, Sherlock began laughing.

The screen did not respond.

Sherlock glanced about the room frantically, tugging against his restraints. "This is insane."

**_How generous of a friend are you?_**

"Not _that_ generous," Sherlock said.

**_Then do you choose to amputate John's arm?_**

"Now hang on a minute, I'm trying to think!" Sherlock protested, shaking and fuming in his chair.

**_You're running out of time to decide._**

Sherlock's eyes grew wide. "You said, when asking a hundred people on the street, most people don't understand what drives their judgment even though their decisions were completely spontaneous and automatic and immediate. This has something to do with reaction time? How _long_ do I have to decide?"

**_You need it spelled out for you?_**

"I'm not feeling terribly clever right now," Sherlock admitted, practically snarling, loathing having to admit his distraction. "So _yes_ , if you _could_ please spell out the rules I'll play your little game."

**_You were right, Sherlock. Having an emotional stake in the outcome really does make you a less effective detective._**

Sherlock licked his lips. "You think that because John is my friend that I can't think logically about this problem?"

On the screen, John was sweating heavily. He started squirming in his chair, his face distressed. He appeared to be hyperventilating, which was not a reaction Sherlock was expecting, unless something was happening to distress John that Sherlock could not see.

"Hey!" Squinting, Sherlock asked, "What are you doing to him? Stop it right now, I haven't decided anything yet."

**_I'm not doing anything to him. He's having a panic attack_.**

"Why?" Sherlock watched John carefully.

**_There is a screen in front of John Watson. The text you are reading, he is reading also although he cannot see you, Sherlock, or hear your responses._**

Sherlock pursed his lips. His heart sank. "So. He knows I've been given a choice to either have my arm or his arm cut off."

**_Yes. And now he knows that you know. And now you've run out of time. Just ten seconds to decide. If you choose nothing, I will cut his arm off._**

Suddenly, a little animation began to play on the screen below the video of John. It was a little trolley train slowly chugging along.

Sherlock watched in silence as John writhed in his chair. "I see," he said coldly. "He thinks I'm not a good friend. He thinks I'm going to cut his arm off." Sherlock thought on that for a moment

John was shouting now. Sherlock could not hear him, but he could see John's mouth opening and closing frantically.

"If I volunteer to have my arm cut off," Sherlock proposed, watching the little trolley cross the screen, "Will that be all? Will you let us go?"

**_No._**

"How long do you plan on keeping us here?"

**_You're running out of time._**

"Cut John's arm off."

The train came to a halt.

John's writhing stilled. He stared at the screen in panic, fixated on the frozen trolley, his face awash in suspense.

**_That's your choice?_**

On the screen, Sherlock could see John speaking frantically. His heart sank as he read John's lips easily; "What choice? What choice?"

Sherlock ignored his friend's peril and replied calmly, "John and I are both in peril. But how can I possibly defend either of us if I don't even know the rules to the game? If you are going to keep interrupting my questions, yes, cut John's arm off. If I benevolently sacrifice myself but it doesn't result in our freedom, then both John and I will need my superior abilities of deduction to navigate this test so we will both arrive at its conclusion alive. I doubt I could think straight if I was in agony." His heart was pounding so loud he could barely hear his own explanation. "After all it won't kill him, will it?"

_**It might kill him.**  
_

Sherlock watched as John's eyes grew wide.

Then, John began to thrash. At first, Sherlock thought it was panic, until there was an explosion of red blood.

Sherlock's eyes squeezed shut, feeling all the blood drain from his face. "Oh God," he gasped. He hadn't meant to say it out loud. The sound expelled involuntarily.

He had hoped…somehow…that this was all a _bluff_. He had gambled with John's body. And lost.

Sherlock felt his face go numb and his stomach heave. He couldn't open his eyes.

No, he really hadn't believed it would happen.

Oh God. Oh God.

Oh God.

His stomach heaved again. Bile rose in his throat. He furiously swallowed, and gagged as he swallowed, as his mouth was suddenly dry. He coughed. Wheezed.

Oh God.

Not hearing John's screams was unnerving. In his mind, John's drama played out to its grisly end.

Stomach heaved again.

Sherlock tried to breathe. He gasped for air that wouldn't come. He exhaled nothing, no air left in his lungs, but another tortured sound escaped; "Oh Jesus."

Sherlock couldn't bring himself to open his eyes still. And he wanted to. He _wanted_ to open his eyes and watch, _see_ the consequences of what he had done. He wanted to be confronted by his own callousness, feel hardened by it and embrace he was the master of both his fate and John's fate. Mostly, he wanted to show his disembodied abductor that he wasn't squeamish, that he felt no remorse even though he did, and show him that his intellect was just as automatic as some people's sense of justice. He, Sherlock Holmes, would not be dissuaded or intimidated. His superior intellect would win in the end.

Except that illusion was shattered. He was dying in that chair. And he could not open his eyes.

He twitched in his chair, counting back from 100 until he felt calm. In trepidation, Sherlock opened his eyes.

John was slumped in his chair, his right arm reduced to a stump. The detached arm lay in a pool of blood on the floor.

**_The interesting thing is, you could have made no decision and let nature take its course. The result would have been the same. Instead, you consciously chose to throw your friend under the trolley to save yourself. If you had done nothing, the blame would have been solely mine._**

Gritting his teeth, Sherlock said, "It was the _logical_ choice."

**_Now that I know you have the proclivity towards saving yourself, what if the scenario were the other way around? What if we had the same situation. The trolley is coming towards John, just as before._**

"Hold on a minute!" Sherlock barked. His eyes darted to John. His friend's face was limp. There was no movement in him, as if he were dead. "You haven't told me anything new! How is this game played?"

**_But instead of a lever next to you, there's a lever next to_ _him_ _._**

Sherlock watched John begin to blink rapidly. His jaw was relaxed, a strand of drool escaping his lips. Red drool. Blood. John had probably bit his tongue or the inside of his mouth while in anguish.

**_Can you read this, John?_**

John Watson's trembling lips moved. They shook so terribly, Sherlock could not discern what John was saying, if indeed coherent words had been spoken.

**_There's a trolley coming towards you, John, and you can't stop it. But there's a lever next to you. Pull the lever and the train will derail onto Sherlock._**

John stared dead ahead, no expression. Blood continued to seep out of his mouth. Blood continued to drip to the floor. His face was ghost white.

"John!" Sherlock shouted, throwing himself back and forth in his restraints with all his strength. "John!" He wasn't sure why he was shouting. All rational thought escaped him. He knew John could not hear him. And even if he could, he wasn't sure how he wanted to coax his friend. After all, the math remained the same despite Sherlock's guilty feelings.

John's lips moved slightly.

**_I can cut off Sherlock's arm, just as Sherlock cut off your arm_ ,** replied the screen to John's unheard question. **_Or, you can choose to do nothing, let the trolley run its course and I will take off your other arm. Now that you know just what kind of friend Sherlock Holmes is, do you want to go the rest of your life as a paraplegic so he can remain uninjured?_**

"JOHN!"

_To be continued…_


	3. This Is Supposed To Be A Challenge!

"John! JOHN!" Sherlock thrashed madly in his chair, but his restraints did not budge. He looked at John's face, frozen in shock, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth, dribbling off his chin. Only the trembling lips suggested any life in the man. John's eyes were absolutely dead. Sherlock couldn't imagine how he must be feeling. But, he sensed he would know soon.

The animation of the trolley began again. It chugged agonizingly _slow_ across the bottom of the screen.

**_Ten seconds._**

"JOHN!" Sherlock howled, pulling at his wrist restraints madly. His bones crunched, his skin raw, blistering. His wrists became wet as his skin was rubbed raw against the cold metal, his flesh splitting open and blood pooling inside the restraints. He didn't flinch at all at his self-inflicted injury. If anything, he pulled harder. Sherlock pulled with all his strength, trying to squeeze his boney hands out. He thought wildly that maybe the blood would offer enough lubrication…just enough to…

The trolley made an innocent little "choo-choo!" chime.

Sherlock's eyes flew open in horror.

John's lips were moving.

**_As you wish, John Watson._**

Sherlock squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his teeth.

Nothing happened.

Sherlock felt droplets of sweat fall from his face. He trembled, waiting. But nothing. And then still nothing.

He dared to open his eyes. "JOHN!" he screamed when he saw what was left of his friend. "JOHN! _JOHN!"_ He continued screaming and he couldn't stop.

**_See Sherlock? John Watson is a better friend than you._**

As Sherlock screamed, his voice split, growing raw. His protests became weaker as the adrenaline drained from his body. Sherlock whimpered, his body falling limp in the chair. "John, oh my _God_. _Oh my God John_."

**_Sherlock? Can you think straight? How's that solution coming?_**

"Fuck you," Sherlock sobbed. "Fuck you!" He shut his eyes. "What the _hell_ do you want?"

**_We're conducting a thought experiment, remember? Has the stress caused you short term amnesia as well?_**

"But to what _end_?" cried Sherlock. "What do you want from us? What are you…what are you trying to get from me? What's the point to all this?" He writhed helplessly. "What's the punch line? How does this game work!"

**_There is no point. I told you, this is_ _a thought experiment that measures your sense of moral justice, not your intellect. There is no riddle to solve. There is no prize for figuring it out. There is just you. And John Watson. And the lever. And the trolley. Life is just a series of moral choices. They come and come and never end.  
_**

Sherlock's squirming came to a halt. "How do we get out of here? W-what h-humiliating thing do you want me t-to do?" He starting stuttering now. "Do you want to watch me sacrifice myself? I will. Whatever it takes. You j-just _tell me what you want_ and its _yours_..."

**_There is no way out._**

"You….you must want _something_ from us, otherwise we would be dead!" Sherlock shouted in frustration.

**_Are you ready to play again?_**

Sherlock started screaming; "John! John! Can you hear me, _John!"_

But John was passed out. Soaked in his own blood, John's mind was gone. Soon, he would bleed out.

**_This time, the lever is back in your hands, Sherlock._**

Sweat burned Sherlock's eyes. He rapidly blinked the salty moisture away like tears. Maybe he was crying. He hadn't cried in years. "Leave him alone. Don't fucking _touch_ him."

**_Trolley's coming. It's John's legs this time._**

"Fine!" Sherlock replied automatically. "Take _my_ leg."

**_Legs._**

"Legs!" Sherlock corrected miserably, flexing his toes and mentally saying good-bye to running and walking and climbing stairs. "You can have my damn legs." He imagined all at once being bound to a wheel chair for the rest of his life and wondered how easy it would be to make eggs and toast for John from that awkward height. He now had a life-long debt to his friend. It would take years for John to master dual prosthetics, and even then all fine motor functions would be virtually non-existent. The responsibility now fell to Sherlock to be John's hands…

**_No. No more tit-for-tat. We've done that._**

Sherlock shook. "What do you mean?"

**_Your moral center has shifted because of your experience. Now your moral thinking is becoming automatic, which means you're learning from your mistakes. That's good progress for a sociopath. But this is supposed to be a challenge_ __ _._** ** _So let's raise the stakes and move on to something harder._**

The trolley appeared again.

"Please," Sherlock begged.

**_Let's gather our thoughts. Trolley is coming again for John. But there is a lever next to you. If you do nothing, John's legs will be cut off. He will suffer again, as he's suffered twice before. Not only will he suffer the painful amputation, but he will be a quadriplegic. If he manages to survive, he will have a miserable and painful life ahead of him. However, if you pull the lever, you will be given a local anesthetic. Then, a blade will descend from the arm of the chair that will make an incision around the circumference of your skull, cutting not only the flesh, but also the bone. Then the arm will remove the top of your skull and utterly scramble your brain into soup, killing you._**

The trolley chugged across the screen.

" _What?" _Sherlock slumped in his seat._ "What?"  
_

**_You will die. You will be awake for your death, fully conscious and aware of what is happening to you. However, you will not feel the most painful aspects of your death. Your imagination will do enough to torture you in your final moments. That is until your imagination melts with the rest of your thoughts along with your superior, superior intellect._**

Sherlock was speechless.

**_You're guilt has made you into the kind of friend who would lose a limb, maybe even two limbs, or four limbs, for a friend. But are you the kind of friend who would volunteer to lose his life? Or worse yet, his most prized possession; his brain?_**

Sherlock was frozen, mortified. The tears spilled down his face and he could not stop them.

The trolley chugged along happily.

Sherlock searched John's face for some sign of life. "John? John?" He sobbed. "Is John dead?"

**_He might be. Between the shock and the blood loss, he might be._**

"John…," Sherlock beckoned helplessly.

**_If he is not dead, he will need a capable care-taker if he survives. Maybe a capable friend like you, with your arms and legs and brain. Or, you could spare him the misery of two additional amputations and spare yourself the guilt. If he is dead, can you live with yourself for being such a coward and making him suffer alone? You could shoulder his burden. Maybe he'll even say something thoughtful at your funeral. He is a generous friend, after all. One of those amputations was his choice._**

"I don't know what to do," whimpered Sherlock, his pale eyes glassy voids.

The trolley neared the end of its journey.

**_Not so smart, are you? Just five more seconds._**

At that last moment, Sherlock thought of John's cane.

How John limped when they'd first met and how difficult it had been for John to get around. He remembered how easily it was for him to forget about John leave him behind. How it had limited John. How it had twisted John's face into a mask of ambivalence. Robbed John of joy. And what delight danced in John's eyes the moment he realized he had conquered his own limitation. The person John became after that. The happy person.

Already, John would be robbed of much of that happiness, a happiness Sherlock felt a little responsible for. Sure, it had been John's own adrenaline rush that had ended his psychosomatic delusion. But Sherlock had coaxed John out of safety, dared him to take a risk, live a little. Chase down a serial killer. For kicks. And why not?

But John Watson was strong. He could overcome this. But Sherlock had to believe in John.

That meant coaxing _himself_ out of safety. Daring himself to take a risk. Live a little.

All at once, Sherlock felt peace.

"I'll pull the lever," Sherlock said, surrendering. He actually felt a perverse excitement. He was about to die. Gruesomely. It stirred his pulse and thrilled him in a way outside of fear. He curiously pondered how long he would remain conscious, if he would be able to feel his mind shutting down one thought, one function, at a time, like the lights of a passing subway car disappearing? Or if he would just… _be_ one moment and the next…just _not be_?

**_Sherlock_ , **the screen admonished. **_You're three seconds too late._**

"No, I've decided!" Sherlock said firmly. "I volunteer to die."

 

_****_

_To be continued…_


	4. Stupid

The blood sprayed in a magnificent arch.

A droplet of blood landed on the camera lens. Sherlock was blanketed in a warm, red glow.

Again, Sherlock could not breathe. When he looked down at himself, he saw his body covered in red. Irrationally, he thought he was covered in John's blood. Suddenly, his self-imposed paralysis vanished, his skin crawling. He screamed.

**_Sherlock? Sherlock?_**

There was no coherent response from Sherlock.

**_Sherlock, we have one more round to play before the police show up._**

Sherlock's raw eyes blinked slowly. His lips were cracked. "H-how were the police alerted…? John?"

**_I called them. After all, it's possible that one of you may actually be alive when this experiment is over, and that person may need medical attention._**

"Oh. How thoughtful of you."

**_It was the least I could do. I thought I ought to. To thank you for your participation._**

Sherlock looked carefully at John. The stump of John. The unmoving torso of John. Oh. _Oh_ , how he had thrashed. Sherlock had watched every miserable moment of it. The blades stirred John out of his coma. Sherlock couldn't even tell if John knew where he was anymore. He'd screamed and gurgled. The blood. The blood! Then, nothing again. John had slipped back into the blackness. Then the blades moved onto the second leg. John roused again in madness and pain. Pain unlike Sherlock could ever imagine. John was barely clinging to life now. How could the man still be alive?

"There never was a way out," croaked Sherlock.

**_No. You were going to stay here until my curiosity was satisfied, one way or another._**

Sherlock swallowed dryly. "And. Is it satisfied?"

**_Not yet._**

Sherlock smiled weakly.

John's eyes were open. He eyes blinked in muddled confusion.

"Let's play some more," Sherlock beckoned. "Let's end this."

**_Let's._**

John's gaze seemed to steady, as if he were reading along.

**_This time, I'll make things a little easier. Trolley's coming._**

Sherlock watched John mouth form; " _Fuck_ you." It made Sherlock smile. John was obviously deeply in shock. This false euphoria could end at any time, plummeting John back into the darkness, perhaps for good. Sherlock was shocked that John was still alive at all. It was a miracle. A horrible, horrible miracle.

**_John, the lever is yours again._**

John's lips said, "Fuck the lever, too."

Sherlock, his mind broken, laughed as he cried. _Attaboy, John,_ he thought.

**_John, if you do nothing, you will die. A needle will project from the neck of the chair and puncture your spinal cord and snap it in half. Paralyzed, you will suffocate. You will not have to live your life as a quadriplegic, a fate you have witnessed in other vets. You know how miserable their lives are. How they beg for death. But your suffering can end now._**

**_Or you can pull the lever, John. If you pull the lever, a scalpel will cut open Sherlock's skull. But unlike in the last scenario, a blade will merely slice into his delicate frontal lobe. Then his skull cap will carefully be replaced and his head lovingly bandaged and his wounds cared for. Sherlock will live. Lobotomized. He will have no thoughts or feelings. He will be reduced to a vegetable, left to rot in an institution. And you, John, can rot in a VA hospital for all the nurses to feel sorry for._**

Sherlock was silent for a time. "Ah," he said finally. "You took John's arms and legs, you want to ruin my mind. Leave us both alive and tragically useless. How romantic."

**_I thought you'd like that._**

"It's a nice touch," Sherlock praised. "For your sake, I hope John lobotomizes me. Because if he chooses death, _I_ will be completely sound of body _and_ mind and I will hunt you down." Sherlock smiled wide, his cheeks drenched with tears, his pale eyes empty and soulless and hungry for murder. "You must understand that nothing is off the table now."

**_I also hope that is John's choice. You were made for me, Sherlock._**

"What you're doing to us now…will look like childsplay compared to what I'm going to do to you…"

**_Promises, promises. Although I do love it when you talk dirty. Unfortunately, you could never make me suffer the way I'm making you suffer now. There's no one I love more than you. So, while I force you to watch your friend die by dismemberment, there's no equivalent torture you could put me through._**

"And what if John decides to lobotomize me? What then?"

**_Then you won't be able to resist while I fuck your sweet ass over and over again._**

Sherlock chuckled at that. He was going to douse that man in gasoline and set him on fire and piss on his ashes after he made him eat a tough full of shit.

**_I can look deeply into those pale eyes of yours while you stare up at me. No resistance. I'm hard just thinking about it._**

"It's not up to you, though," Sherlock reminded the screen. "It's up to John."

**_Yes. It's up to John._**

Sherlock looked at John. He smiled painfully.

John was speaking. His mouth was moving.

Sherlock observed John's face carefully. Puzzlement overcame him. John didn't look in pain at all. It was heavenly. "John?"

John's mouth moved with purpose. His eyes roved the camera as if searching for a sign. He was saying something frantically.

Sherlock's eyes softened, distracted by the sheer poetry of it all to decipher John's words. One of them was about to blink out of existence. Either John was going to die, or all Sherlock's thoughts would come to an end. Either way, they would never speak to each other again. They were already dead to each other. Sherlock was already in a pseudo-afterlife. A life after John. A _not-life_ after John.

Sherlock tried to imagine what it would be like to live at 221b Baker Street alone.

Sherlock tried to imagine what it would be like for John to live, never alone again, never a moment of privacy or independence, not even to use the toilet.

For a moment, Sherlock was back in their flat, standing in the foyer just outside the door, peering in.

A ghost of his former self.

Like the ghost of Christmas past. Only in reverse.

Inside the flat, he saw himself and John. John was sitting on the sofa, hands folded neatly in his lap. The other Sherlock was sitting in the arm chair, violin tucked under his chin, his hand delicately holding the bow, poised between notes. But neither John nor Sherlock moved. They were both staring at him. There was such anticipation in their eyes, and disdain and varying degrees of disappointment.

But both their eyes said something….a little different.

"You _idiot_ ," Sherlock's disgusted face expressed.

John's eyes were a little more open, questioning, puzzled. "What are you _doing_?"

"I'm an idiot," Sherlock repeated himself out loud, slowly, experimentally, not really knowing why he was an idiot, but feeling certain that he was. Certain things rang true when said outloud. His subconscious was practically screaming at him. "What am I _doing_?"

His eyes blinked rapidly. His vision focused.

He saw John's face for real, in the projection screen. John's face mirrored the John he had seen in his mind. His mouth was moving. Finally, he could make out the words: _What are you doing? Sherlock? Can you hear me? What are you_ _doing_? _What's going on?_

Sherlock sat in profound stupidity.

**_Ten seconds._**

John ought to know what's going on, Sherlock thought. He should have been reading along the entire time. Sherlock's eyes grew wide. "Stupid!" he spat.

**_Eight seconds._**

"You shouldn't be alive!" Sherlock shouted accusingly at John, his sense of reality deteriorating. "You should be dead. That first arm should have done it. Knick just one artery and you should have bled out in just a minute. This…show…while gruesome and spectacular, is just a trick."

**_Six seconds._**

Sherlock sank miserably, feeling close to the prize but it was agonizingly out of his reach no matter how madly he swiped at it. Oddly enough, John seemed to have the answer. "John? John? Please tell me it's a trick! This can't be real. I'm dreaming. This is a dream."

In the projection, John was shouting impatiently. By now, Sherlock could read his lips so readily he could practically hear John's voice. Sherlock shouted to John, "Where were we? Where were we before all this happened? How did we end up here? I can't remember anything. Something knocked us out. I'm hallucinating or something." He yanked his sore wrists against the restraints. "Damn it John! Wake me up! You've got it! I can see you've got it! God knows how you figured it out, but you've got it!"

**_Three seconds_.**

"Wake me up John!" Sherlock demanded furiously. "Spell it out for me! I'm fucking stupid!"

**_Two seconds._**

John was aghast. He kept yelling.

**_One second._**

_"What don't I get?"_ Sherlock howled. "What is my stupid, inferior brain missing? Why can't I work it out?"

**_I guess John Watson isn't such a good friend after all, Sherlock. He pulled the lever._**

 

To be continued…


	5. I Want Everything From You

Sherlock did not know what it felt like to be lobotomized, but the sensation he was experiencing was decidedly _not_ what he expected, and that terrified him more.

It terrified him because he thought his brain was being sliced into, that his ability to perceive was being cut away, that he was being robbed of observation. What else was he missing? When he could no longer hear or smell or see, would he know it? Would he remember ever having seen or heard or smelled anything when that ability was gone? Sherlock clung to every thought, every memory, even the rubbish stuff that he couldn't seem to delete from his hard-drive he always wished he could. Now, every thought was a treasure, no matter how useless. He was proud that he could remember all the words to _Babes in Toyland_. He knew that wheezing noise one makes as they laugh was called a "glottal whistle." He was even happy to know the earth rotated around the sun. And he was terrified it was all going to go away.

Then the terror ceased.

He never felt the prick of a needle, nor heard the "whirr" of a mechanical arm going to saw his skull open, and he never felt the pressure of a scalpel piercing his skin. He didn't feel any recognizable sensation at all, and there were many odd sensations recorded in that _incalculable_ hard drive.

What he felt was an intense pain. A shuddering pain. It throbbed through his body, making his arms and legs shake, his chest seize and his teeth chatter. It pulsed through his body and robbed him of all thought. He experienced a euphoric, thoughtless wonder where his brain went completely _silent_. But he wasn't dead. He was very much alive. He was still _observing_. But his _inner monologue_ , his ability to reflect and _analyze_ , was shorted out. He existed in a pure state of sensation and observation. It was glorious! The world was filled with so much data.

This went on for hours. Or so it seemed. Maybe it was really only a few seconds. Things seemed to be moving very slowly. This pleased Sherlock. Slowness. Everything is slow motion. The world is a happy blur. Incredible.

 _Pixels._ John's face was pixels.

Millions of tiny squares.

Finally, Sherlock had a thought, in between the relentless buzzing: _John is millions of tiny squares. I am millions of tiny squares. I'll rearrange them and John will have his arms and legs back and I won't have to make toast. John can make toast, which is all the more agreeable because I don't like toast and I never know if the setting should be two or three minutes. One setting is too light, the other too dark and I have to stand there and count to two and a half minutes to get just the right gold color. And I would get the right color if I had to make toast for John, every single time._

Then the buzzing stopped.

The wonder ended.

Sherlock sank in his chair, his muscles and bones melted into limp puddles inside his skin, his body hanging from the chair's clamps. He twitched once. Twice.

Trembling, Sherlock gasped for air.

Hazy steam rose from Sherlock's skin, as if he had just climbed out of a hot bath and walked naked outside into the snow. He watched it with detached curiosity. Not steam, _smoke_.

Sherlock licked his dry lips. His own body hair smelled like burned dog. His mouth tasted like a battery.

Smoke.

Smoke?

Ah, there it was. The pain again. But now it was left-over pain. Stinging.

"Uhhh…uh….wha….!" Sherlock warbled.

The pain of the electrical burn. There had been electrodes in his arm and leg restraints. The clamps had been so tight he hadn't felt them. But he felt them now, felt the circular nodes, felt the perfectly round burns, his pulsing epidermis split and oozing. By his estimates, he'd just experienced 1000 volts. It was a little less than half the strength of an electric chair, where 2500 volts would shock for 20 seconds or more to cause death, but far exceeding the 200 volts typically used in electric shock therapy. It had been strong enough to singe body hair, burst blood vessels and leave a really, really nasty burn for a long time. It was just shy of the current that would have caused loss of consciousness and nervous control of the heart and lungs.

"Ahhwuhahhwuh…." he blurted, spittle projecting, then clinging to his bottom lip, face twitching from the traces of electrocution. There was blood in his mouth. He'd bit his tongue. He swirled the blood around in his mouth. God, he saw _double_.

And he really wanted to see properly because something interesting was happening on that monitor.

"Llleeesstrade…," Sherlock slurred. " _John_ …."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"I have no idea what happened," John explained tensely, sitting up on a gurney, his legs swinging below him and his nervous hands fidgeting in his sweater. "I have no memory of how I got there. I just woke up in that room, strapped to the chair." Before John, a paramedic shined a light in his eyes and John obediently followed it.

"What happened then?" Sergeant Donovan asked, jotter in hand, eyeing John with varying degrees of suspicion and concern. Beside her, Lestrade stood with his hands planted on his hips, looking at the pavement gravely.

John shrugged in puzzlement. "These _words_ just appeared on a screen in front of me. It was like a one-sided conversation with…well, Sherlock. This…whoever….wanted to play a game."

"A game?"

John nodded. "He threatened to cut my arm off unless Sherlock volunteered to have his arm cut off in my place. Can you believe it? At least, that's what the text read. I flipped out."

Donovan's face scrunched up. "And then?"

John rolled up his sleeves and showed her his burns. They were nasty, black, oozing wounds. "Then I got electrocuted. It was the worst pain I've ever felt in my life. And at first, I thought my arm really was being cut off. I was too wound up to realize the difference."

Lestrade asked, "Why were you _electrocuted_? I mean….what did this guy _want_?"

John gingerly put his hands down, mindful not to disturb his wounds. The paramedic turned his wrists over so they wouldn't rub against his jeans. "God, I have no idea. I didn't understand any of it. But they kept zapping me, over and over again. I couldn't make any sense of it."

"Did he say _anything_ to you?" Lestrade said. "Anything at all?"

John breathed deeply. He exhaled. "Yeah. Yes." He nodded, looking uncomfortably down at his shoes. "He said, he wanted me to play the game, too. He…told me that…he was going to kill Sherlock unless I volunteered….," John's voice trailed off. He chuckled.

Donovan and Lestrade leaned forward.

John voice was very low. "I don't know. Cut my legs off. It didn't make any sense." He met the two detective's questioning eyes, feeling their tense stares boring into his skull. "It was crazy. It was…it was…unreal."

"So what did you do?" Lestrade demanded suddenly.

"I…I…," John stammered, not in apprehension but in irritation. As if…what did he _think_? As if John were capable of… "I volunteered. Naturally."

Lestrade and Donovan slowly nodded in approval. They were, after all, guardians of the public good, the two detectives and the soldier. They were all inclined to lay down their lives for a friend. The decision would have been automatic for any of them. It took no thought. But that didn't mean the meaning of self-sacrifice was lost of them. John, they knew, was a brave and loyal friend.

"But then," John went on, trying to minimize the significance of the horrific drama he'd lived through by moving on quickly, "I just got….jolted again. My legs stayed right where they were. It was agony. But every time I got hit ….it felt like…it was losing its _juice_. Like the shocks were less and less powerful. I got my wits back faster each time. Or, I dunno, maybe I was getting acclimated to the shocks. But anyhow, it occurred to me."

"What did?"

John leaned forward, rested his elbows on his knees. "I don't think Sherlock had any idea I was just getting shocked. I think…maybe they had some kind of audio recording of me…and he was just hearing me and thinking I was being tortured to death. So I started shouting for him. I have no idea if it did any good."

"There was a video feed," Lestrade informed John. "Sherlock had a projection screen in front of him, too. He had video and text."

John's brow furrowed. "Then he should have seen everything that was going on. He would have known I was fine…"

Donovan shook her head. "We don't know about that. There was evidence the video was manipulated."

"In real time?" John asked.

"All the equipment used in this crime was highly sophisticated," Donovan said. "We're currently disassembling it and sending it back to our labs to see what we can learn from it."

"But any info on the suspect would be much more helpful," Lestrade pried. "We need to start a manhunt right away. What can you tell us?"

John flinched from the clumsy administrations of the paramedic as he wounds were cleaned. "Jesus, I haven't a clue."

"Think, John," Donovan urged. "Did he….want information? Like…maybe something personal he could use to blackmail or manipulate you…?"

"No," John answered, just as puzzled as they. "He didn't want anything."

"Did he want…revenge?" Donovan pocketed her jotter, brow furrowed. "Like maybe he was a past suspect you two pissed off?"

John shook his head slowly, becoming impatient. "Look, I don't know. I never saw anyone or heard a voice. I can't help you, sorry."

All three were quiet then. The paramedic finished up with John and gathered his things and climbed up into the ambulance, leaving John, Lestrade and Donovan together with a clear line of sight towards Sherlock. They all stared at him.

Sherlock was away from the center of the bustle, sitting on the bumper of another ambulance. There was a paramedic beside him, carefully bandaging Sherlock's burned wrists. The world's only consulting detective was shaking so violently they could all see it at this distance. There was blood in his hair and traces of it having dripped down his forehead. His skin was slick with sweat, his eyes red and swollen while the rest of his face was white. He stared right back at the three of them. He was completely fixated.

"Doesn't leave much for us to go on," Lestrade murmured.

Donovan pulled the inspector's sleeve when he made a motion like he was going to approach Sherlock. "Don't," she admonished.

"Well, what am I supposed to do?" he snapped at her. "Not question the only other witness? A witness that has a knack for gathering huge amounts of information from the briefest observations? Can you imagine the wealth of information he can give us…?"

"A witness," Donovan said, "who can't even talk."

They began to argue, but John blocked it all out. His eyes were locked with Sherlock's.

Poor guy. He looked a right mess.

"Hey," John mouthed from across the crowd, trying to give his friend a positive greeting. He wiggled his fingers in a mock-wave. They actually hadn't spoken at all.

Sherlock nodded back at John. "Hey," he mouthed in return.

John nodded and smiled a bit, even though Sherlock was not smiling. They'd been separated right away, John for questioning and Sherlock because he'd been hysterical when he'd regained consciousness and required a sedative. He looked better now. But once or twice before he'd calmed down, Sherlock had screamed John's name with such blood-curdling urgency John nearly punched the paramedic in front of him as a reflex. No one could scream like that unless they were being burned alive. And that meant John had to go and help Sherlock. _Right now._ But then the sedative took effect and John calmed right down along with Sherlock, as immediately and effectively as if John had gotten the shot himself. John hadn't seen Sherlock through any of that episode, but he had heard him. _Everyone_ had heard him.

And now, as they locked eyes, Sherlock looked like he wanted to cry.

"Hey," John mouthed again, feeling foolish, feeling vulnerable. Seeing Sherlock's emotions so raw, so exposed, made him embarrassed. "It's okay. We're fine," he urged.

Sherlock observed John carefully and then closed his eyes, nodding. His head drooped down. His body heaved, like one good sob escaped.

This display was not lost on Donovan or Lestrade, who had stopped bickering and were now watching Sherlock.

"I think we'll leave him be until he composes himself," Lestrade said, clearing his throat. He, like John, was uncomfortable.

"Hey," John asked as the two began to walk away. "Would it be too much trouble to get a coffee?" He nodded in Sherlock's direction. "So I could…give it to him?"

Donovan nodded over her shoulder as she parted ways with Lestrade. "Fine. But then get him settled, John. We have lots of questions for him."

"Leave it to me," John said, looking back at Sherlock.

From across the crowd, despite his best efforts to stop, Sherlock wasn't any calmer. He continued to stare at the pavement. "Please," he begged.

The paramedic gently dabbed Sherlock's wrists with some ointment. "Be good."

"Please…"

"I said be good." He bandaged the wrist. "There. All better. Isn't that better?"

Sherlock looked back at John, sitting on his gurney looking attentively after him, his face a perfect picture of calm and comforting, the bomb strapped to the bottom of the gurney blinking away. Enough explosives to wipe everyone out.

Sherlock shook his head slowly, unbelieving. "It was trick before…"

"It could be a trick now," agreed the paramedic in a friendly voice. "You don't know. But you're an intelligent, observant detective. I'm sure you can work it out. I think you know what to expect if you wait too long."

Sherlock's lip trembled, eyes glued to John's face. "And if I pull the lever?"

The paramedic tucked an unruly strand of hair out of Sherlock's eyes and swept it behind his ear. Then his finger traced Sherlock's jaw lovingly.

"Jim?" Sherlock whimpered. "What happens to _me_ if I pull the lever?"

The paramedic shrugged innocently. "Nothing too bad. You climb into the ambulance. I get behind the wheel and we drive away together. To whatever end."

"What do you want from me?" Sherlock asked.

At that, the paramedic stepped in front of Sherlock, severing his path to John. He hooked his finger under Sherlock's chin and forced his pale eyes to meet his. "Everything. I want _everything_ from you." His finger abandoned Sherlock's chin. Now he traced Sherlock's lips. "I thought what you said back there was really sexy. Say it again. Say it to _me_."

Sherlock, tears in his eyes, glared at the man. "Say what?"

"Say you're stupid."

Sherlock's eye twitched. Hatefully, he said, "I'm stupid."

Jim Moriarty's eyes smoldered. "Say it _all_."

Sherlock pursed his lips and exhaled through his nose. Then, carefully, he said in a low voice, "I'm stupid. I'm an idiot. My…inferior brain can't work it out." As he spoke, Moriarty's finger tip slipped into Sherlock's mouth. Sherlock pointedly ignored the finger and kept on speaking to the best of his ability, aware that he was tasting the other man's finger. "'Pell it ouw for me."

The other man's smile was twisted as he removed his finger. He brought his wet finger tip to his own mouth and licked it. "See. This is easy now. Look how obedient you are, and it took less than thirty minutes of conditioning to make you this way. Just think of how you'll be in a week. In a year." He patted Sherlock's cheek affectionately. Then his fingers sank into Sherlock's hair, ruffling it. Then he clenched his fist and held him tight. "And you'll be good. You'll be good through _all_ _of it_. And if you're _not_ , just remember, I know how to pluck those little heart strings of yours and make you feel what you thought you couldn't." He let go of Sherlock suddenly and walked around the ambulance. "Remember, the workers never see that trolley coming!"

Sherlock just sat in silence.

John's head was cocked curiously to the side. He hadn't seen what happened, but clearly something was out of place. His face told Sherlock his mind was busy working it out.

Sherlock's eyes softened.

One of them was about to blink out of existence.

Either John was going to die, or…

Either way, they would never speak to each other again.

They were already dead to each other. Sherlock was already in a pseudo-afterlife.

John's face withdrew in concern. He began to move, as if to climb off the gurney and go to Sherlock.

But Sherlock shook his head at his friend, and John settled back down, face was still questioning.

"I should have pulled the lever the very first time," Sherlock said outloud. "I would have felt the shock and known it was all an illusion. _That_ was the point. If I had sacrificed myself at the beginning, I would have figured it out. It was all a bluff."

"Come along," Moriarty beckoned, sing-song. "Ten seconds and the trolley is here if you don't pull that lever."

With resolution, Sherlock stood up and climbed into the ambulance and shut the doors behind him quickly. Once he was alone in the dark, he sank to the floor in misery, humiliation and anger. When he heard the engine turn, he punched the floor and wept.

John leapt to his feet. "Sherlock?"

The police officers all looked up.

Lestrade and Donovan rushed towards John. "What's wrong?"

John ignored them all, watching in horror as the ambulance took off like a shot in the dark. "Sherlock!" he shouted, giving chase.

The police officers all began to scramble, climbing into various vehicles. John just ran, irrationally, as if he thought he could catch the ambulance on foot.

At that moment, the gurney John had been sitting on exploded.

John wobbled and turned around, losing his footing and falling hard on the pavement. He shielded his eyes from the explosion and the falling debris. Then he looked back after the ambulance. He climbed to his feet, panting, shaking.

"SHERLOCK!" he screamed with blood-curdling urgency, as if he was being burned alive.

 

**_The end._ **

 


End file.
